Building better embassies

Today Newsweek profiles the new US Embassy in Baghdad, painting a very good "pen picture" of it, as we used to say in primary school. But, there are no photos in the article! As it mentions, Baghdad has a tradition of cutting edge architecture (check out this Flickr group devoted to the modern architecture of Baghdad). Some of those buildings are pretty interesting. By contrast, Newsweek reports that the new US Embassy is " a collection of more than 20 boxy buildings in burnt orange and beige, plopped down on about 100 acres of walled land by the Tigris River. One of the largest office buildings has gray, bladelike horizontal metal sunscreens on the top half supported on naked girders. It's like the venting on some industrial furnace or maybe the world's largest, meanest cheese grater. Or a giant, multiedged razor. "

This is a pity, since it must be possible to balance security with design. In fact, Monocle Magazine has an excellent online documentary about this very issue. It profiles the Manser architecture practice in London which designed high-security British embassies in Katmandu and Harare. The video interview talks about how the British embassy in Harare is planted only with indigenous trees, planted so that they provide shelter from the morning and late afternoon sun. The print article also talks about how some countries use embassies as a shop window (e.g. Denmark using embassies to showcase Danish furniture design). A far cry from "the world's largest, meanest cheese grater".

Spending money on embassies is not a waste of money. It promotes the image of a country, something which Britain is good at (the BBC World Service, British Council, etc) but which the US seems to have missed in this case.